(JIN DING / CHINA DAILY)
Climate change is no longer a looming threat but a destructive reality that is already happening.
The international community has paid growing attention to climate change since the early 1990s by formulating and adopting various strategies, conventions and treaties to address the challenges. We might have been too obsessed with international treaties with ambitious targets never fully realized.
It is encouraging that an increasing number of countries and companies are making a commitment to the Net Zero 2050 initiative. But setting that ambitious target does not guarantee the desirable outcomes will be achieved. We must take real actions.
Our actions to tackle climate change have unfortunately taken a back seat to the pressing challenge of COVID-19. It appears that the efforts are concentrated on addressing social and health issues, and reviving economies that are severely disrupted by the pandemic.
The challenges before us are unprecedented. Historically, economic policies mainly focused on stimulating growth while controlling inflation and unemployment. Now, we have to revitalize the global economy, manage the massive social crisis triggered by the pandemic and also pursue decarbonization.
The challenge we face now is to operationalize the concept of sustainable development. The concept was adopted in 1992 at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, where the international community unanimously welcomed the idea of enhancing economic growth while protecting the environment and promoting social development.
Despite this, the climate crisis has been exacerbated. Social disparities have widened and income and wealth inequalities have been aggravated. The pandemic and climate crisis are wake-up calls that we do not have any more time to spend in formulating strategies and setting goals, we have to initiate immediate and practical actions to operationalize sustainable development.
Though countries are aware of the needs for increasing investments in climate actions, they are still hesitant to decarbonize their energy and industry, believing that it might damage their economies and lead to job losses. It shows that our understanding of sustainable development still remains rudimentary.
But deep decarbonization of industry and transformation toward renewable energy should be viewed as an opportunity to promote green growth and job creation, while increasing investment in public health systems and social protection schemes should be regarded as a foundation for dealing with the current challenges and building back better from the pandemic.
Though we understand the need to invest in a green economic recovery, we are still seeking the best way to operationalize the concept.
This is why we have to pool our wisdom and share best practices through international cooperation. Such unprecedented challenges call for even stronger international collaboration.
Carbon neutrality is not just a matter of energy transformation. Realizing the Net Zero 2050 objective requires a drastic departure from the traditional economic system where the price of carbon emissions is neither considered nor paid. We have to rebuild our economies by taking into account the price of the carbon we are emitting.
Carbon neutrality requires innovations in energy technologies and industrial policies. Carbon pricing should be introduced in the energy market, industrial restructuring and tax reform.
We can no longer exploit cheap fossil fuel without paying the price of carbon for rapid development. Investments in renewable energy and transformation for decarbonization are the drivers for achieving green and sustainable growth.
The paradigm shift toward a post-pandemic green recovery has to be pushed by concerted and collective actions among the major economies.
Peer pressure and collaboration among major economies mean they can lead on climate change, as they correct the market distortions caused by fossil fuel exploitation, and construct more favorable conditions for our carbon-neutral future.
Collaboration among major economies for green recovery and decarbonization is not sufficient. Substantial support for the many developing countries lacking the capacity for energy transformation and green recovery is essential.
Many important issues have to be addressed and agreed upon at the upcoming Conference of the Parties (COP 26) in Glasgow in November. The United Kingdom, the host country, has an ambitious goal of accelerating actions for the mitigation of emissions and scaling up of finance and support for developing countries.
We have spent enough time since 1992 when the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change was first signed, and learned enough to know that setting ambitious targets and delivering real climate actions are two different things.
The COP 26 United Nations Climate Change Conference must not make the mistake of confusing enhanced National Determined Contributions targets with the real climate actions.
Too many COPs missed the core issues such as carbon pricing and fiscal reform for decarbonization and mitigation. It is crucial the Glasgow COP act as a platform to deploy concerted global actions as well as provide financial support to climate actions of developing countries.
The author is co-chair of the International Finance Forum and former prime minister of the Republic of Korea. The author contributed this article to China Watch, a think tank powered by China Daily.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.